I first noticed it a couple of months ago. There would be the usual gulls, pigeons and crows hanging around the café, and then there was this one starling. Given its diminutive size in relation to the other birds I had to admire its tenacity in staking out the place as it’s territory. Indeed I was also curious: Do starlings actually have territories? Aren’t they flock birds? This one clearly hangs out alone and I am still wondering why: Fiercely independent innovator? Lazy opportunist? Anti social? Or just a runt who, fed up with being at the bottom of the pecking order, decided to clear out? At the end of the summer while the café was still busy and the weather mild enough for the scraps bin to be left outside, it’d dart in and out of it like a humming bird while the less agile pigeons looked on in jealous bemusement. Now in the middle of winter, and punters (and therefore scraps) are thin on the ground, it just perches on top of the wind break waiting patiently for plates too clean for the other birds to bother with, but still yielding enough for its tiny needs. Sometimes it’ll wait so patiently by a diner yet to finish their plate of chips that they can’t resist pushing a few crumbs across the table.

A few weeks ago it flew down and perched on the back of the chair next to mine while I was drinking some tea. It could see there wasn’t any food, but since no one else was around it just stayed there. After a while it began to sing. Starlings have the most extraordinary song, something like a cross between a budgie and radio static, full of pops, whistles and slow descending whoops. I was entranced. In a break in its song, I tried, badly, to imitate it, but it seemed close enough for the bird to recognise the effort. It whistled 2 peeps, one high, one low, and looked at me. I managed to mimic this as a response and after a pause it did it again. So, so did I… This went on for a while, until another customer turned up with a plate of food and it was off.

Yesterday I had some chips at the café. I whistled the two peeps and the starling turned up on queue (to be honest, I think I ordered the chips in the hope it would). So I broke one chip up into tiny pieces and placed these on the opposite side of the table to me. It darted across the table, its claws skittering on the plastic surface, retrieved the crumbs one at a time, skidding and flying back to its perch while finishing each beak-full. Once the chip pieces had gone it sang again. Once again I was entranced.

Today I made it a packed lunch out of a thin slice of salami chopped into bits the size of small garden worms, plus some crumbs from a seeded loaf of bread, and dropped the bits into an old plastic film pot. The wind hit me as soon as I neared the sea front and I could hear the waves booming in the distance. I wondered if it was going to be just too wild, but nevertheless I peeped twice and there it was again. The breadcrumbs were ignored but the salami went down singing hymns (and it bloody well should, my favourite saussison sec avec herbes de provence).

Why does this make me so happy? I don’t know, I don’t really care.